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What's the story?
The wrestling world has been debating since the May 27 episode of WWE Raw whether Sami Zayn was given permission to mention AEW during his ‘Electric Chair’ segment towards the end of the show.
Speaking on Wrestling Observer Live, Bryan Alvarez discussed the conflicting reports regarding Zayn’s line on Raw and revealed that he has been told by multiple people that Vince McMahon was “furious” and “flipped his lid” after hearing it.
In case you didn't know…
AEW’s Double or Nothing pay-per-view was viewed as an overwhelming success by wrestling fans.
The show featured the debut of Jon Moxley, aka Dean Ambrose, while former WWE Superstars Cody Rhodes and Dustin Rhodes were involved in a Brother vs. Brother match which will likely go down as one of the best of the year.
With all eyes on Monday’s episode of Raw to see how WWE would respond to Double or Nothing, Sami Zayn referenced AEW during a Q&A segment with fans in the final hour of the show.
After being asked several underwhelming questions from the audience, a frustrated Zayn said:
“You could’ve asked me anything. You could’ve asked me about AEW!”
There has been confusion over whether Zayn was told to mention AEW during the segment, with some reports stating that he was given permission and others claiming he went off-script.
WWE has since removed the line from its YouTube video of the segment.
The heart of the matter
Bryan Alvarez mentioned that he has been told by two sources that Sami Zayn’s AEW reference was in the Raw script, but he also heard from “far more people” that the line was not scripted and that Vince McMahon was not happy backstage.
Alvarez said:
“One person said that [it was in the Raw script]. I had another person say it was a scripted line. With that said, I heard from multiple people – far more people, in fact – and people that had heard from other people who all said the line was not scripted, the line was not supposed to be said. I was also told from multiple people that when it happened, Vince flipped his lid. He was furious that this happened.”
What's next?
With so many differing reports going around, it is difficult to know what will happen next with Sami Zayn. If he did indeed go off-script by mentioning AEW, then it will be very interesting to see how he is booked going forward.
